Originally Posted by
SeverianLyonesse
I agree with this sentiment. The cast bar is ludoconceptually very appropriate for SAM, both with the idea of Samurai centering themselves and attacking with a delay, and with the idea of SAM being a successor to the Mystic Knight job.
I can't really comment on mudras because despite being made integral to the job I think they are also the reason why NIN is a horrible expression of the ninja job fantasy. Whatever shadow-assassin-acrobat flavor the job used to or might have had seems to have been abandoned for a lot of Naruto BS and an excess of elemental magic on a *mid-rage melee* job. Inasmuch as I think that SAM is one of the most creative and elegant implementations of a classic job fantasy in XIV, I think NIN is one of, if not the worst (alongside poor schizoid SCH).